


You Alone

by Teland



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Introspection, M/M, Married Couple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1998-11-20
Updated: 1998-11-20
Packaged: 2020-12-09 18:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20999060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teland/pseuds/Teland
Summary: A few different mornings.





	You Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to kormantic and Alicia for helpful comments!

I like to watch him sleep. 

I used to wonder about that tendency of mine, used to think   
it had something to do with a dark, twisted need for him to   
be young enough for me to treat like the child I wonder if   
he ever was.

But he doesn't look young when he sleeps, or helpless. His   
focus may soften, but never leaves. His awareness is   
constant,even if the world he watches changes during the   
nights. My urge to hold him closer, to make sure he can   
sense me wherever he goes when he closes his eyes -- there   
is no battle for dominance here. At least, not with him. 

I want to be near him always.

I want him to know me there, and smile in his dreams for   
the knowledge.

Simple insecurity... I watch for that smile, and if it does   
not come I will work harder when he wakes to make *sure* I   
see it. 

I am a thorough man, and I know if I grumble at this, or   
glare at that, I am sure to earn a grin, or even a laugh.   
And the gleam in his eyes will be muted with affection.

Or perhaps with age. It doesn't matter. If my glasses spend   
more time on my face these days... well, I was always fond   
of the way they made the light bend.

I shift in my chair, absently consider rising to get the   
paper off the doorstep, but the patch of sun from the   
window warms my bones, and he has shifted in his sleep.

A slow roll, soft noise of waking. I should go back to bed.   
I know he hates to wake up this early, now that he doesn't   
have to anymore. I know that, when the sheets have cooled  
enough beside him to make my absence noticeable, he will  
wake up anyway.

Cat-quick those eyes I've loved for longer than I have ever   
been able to admit will open, fix me with an amused glare.  
More fuzzed with sleep than they once were -- he has grown  
older, as well. He'll say:

"A man could get paranoid under scrutiny like that,   
Walter."

And I'll reply that it's nothing new for him. It is a   
ritual between us, and the meaning of the words is... They   
are worthless, really. A wife will peck her husband on the   
cheek to say goodbye every day for twenty years, and the   
passion will fade to some ghost of sepia. But if the ritual   
was ever forgotten, lost in some fast morning of crying   
children and burnt toast, neither the husband nor the wife   
would feel the day was complete until they could kiss and   
kiss again.

A reassurance that all remains the same.

Perhaps it isn't worthless at all, then. Considering the   
lives we led, it seems only natural for us to look for some   
tangible reason to believe we are still ourselves, that   
there is this place we've built, that there remains warmth   
and love. 

I will give him this every day I live, and the day I knew   
he would do the same -- that moment -- was more marriage   
than words or paper could ever bestow. More joining than   
any flex and thrust of our bodies beneath the sheets. 

Not that I would begrudge either. I am not so old that the   
shift of lean muscle beneath skin tanning slow in the bare   
glimpses of sun he allows it does not make my blood do its  
best to shift residence south. 

He does to me what he always has, and the bright heat of   
insanity is as welcome as ever. 

It's time for me to go back to bed.

******

I'm sore. 

I'm exhausted. 

I'm -- I shift -- very sore. 

There is no good reason to be awake. At all. 

Well, all right, thats not true. In my business, sleep is a   
liability. I remember those grunts from that case I worked   
all those years back. I remember watching the way they   
moved, considering the near daily advances in SSRIs --   
secret and otherwise -- and wondering if Girardi was still   
in business. 

He died, of course, but there were times over the next   
several years that I cursed Cole for being such an Old   
Testament bastard. That's the trouble with a lot of   
American religious types -- never *quite* get to that whole   
Jesus thing.

Blasphemy, I know, especially considering what I would   
have done had sleep never been able to claim me again.

But I never claimed to be religious.

So, there was *always* good reason for me to be awake, if   
only to keep the machine in order, but that had nothing to   
do with today.

Today I am in the bed of a man who had less reason than   
most to ever want me there, and that man is wrapped around   
me so tightly I wonder if I should have a few ribs removed   
for the sake of romance. 

Don't get me wrong -- I couldn't be this snide if I could   
see his face. One day I was scrubbing the grout, and I made   
a comment about most kept boys leading plushier lives than   
my own. Christ, it was just a joke. But the way his face   
looked when I finally turned to see why I didn't get a   
snark in return...

So I decided my sense of humor may have suffered during my   
time in the shadows. I was angry at him for making me feel   
guilty about a goddamned joke, but only until I came to the   
realization that shadows had never held anything good. Not   
for me.

All right, it took a while. I never claimed to be the   
quickest rabbit out the hole, either. 

But I pride myself on remembering a lesson once it batters   
its way through my thick skull. Or maybe some lessons are   
more territorial than others. 

I may still think these things now and again, but I won't   
let my mind hurt him again.

And I know he'll ease the aches from my bones when he   
wakes. 

******

Dawn.

I've seen far too many dawns from the cold and shaky end of   
things to do anything but grimace at another. There's no   
one to see it, my lover is asleep still, and I will scowl   
at the sun as much as I damned well please. 

He can't see me to smirk at the immaturity. That's what   
*he* calls it, anyway. Me, I consider it to be merely an   
attempt on my part to hold on to youth. I have a romantic   
soul.

Even I can't help but snicker at that last, and he frowns a   
little in his sleep, shifts his head on my chest. A little   
harder than strictly necessary -- but it doesn't surprise   
me that the man's punishment instincts are as finely honed   
unconscious as conscious.

He punishes me a little every day.

Every smile, every soft touch... Once I asked how he could,   
after everything we'd done to each other. He only asked me   
how *I* could. I started to tell him that was different,   
but he silenced me with a kiss.

Slow burn and ease. I never dreamed I'd walk to my own pyre   
with a smile. When he touches me I only want more. When I   
ask, I always receive. 

God, you and you alone and I pull him tighter to myself.   
Watch the warm light gild his cheekbones, add beauty to the   
prosaic reality of the wetness on his mouth.

For a moment, I am panicked. This can't possibly last,   
nothing sweet ever does. 

And then I remember that, for better or worse, it's all   
over. That thing I called my life has ground to a peaceful   
halt, perhaps even forever. And this... this is mine, now,   
and I need not fear losing it to anything but time. 

The bright panic fades to a simple pain, rough diamond   
slicing my palm. Precious as nothing else I'd ever   
experienced, I welcome it all.

But I'll still never admit he was right about the dawn   
thing.

~~~~  
End.  
~~~~


End file.
